Home Detention, Probation for Walnut Couple in Royal Jelly 'Misbranding' Case

LOS ANGELES, CA - The husband-and-wife owners of a Walnut-based nutritional supplement company were sentenced Monday to home detention and probation for illegally importing honey bee royal jelly from China under deceptive labels and other offenses.

Lynn Leung, 61, the former president and co-owner of the UBF Group Inc., doing business as the Nu-Health Products Co., was ordered to serve five years of probation, which will include a year of home detention, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Leung was also ordered by U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer to pay a $20,000 fine and was banned from working as a manager, officer or director of any business entity -- including her own family companies -- for a period of five years.

Daniel Fu, 65, Leung's husband and the former vice president of UBF Group, was also sentenced to five years of probation, ordered to spend six months under home detention and fined $20,000. During the period of probation, Fu is also banned from working as a manager, officer or director of any business entity -- including his own family companies.

Leung and Fu jointly owned and operated a number of local dietary supplement import and distribution companies doing business as Nu-Health Products, including UBF Group and ASN Group.

Fischer also sentenced UBF Group, ordering it to pay a total monetary penalty of $1.29 million. The company was ordered to pay a $230,000 fine, forfeit $941,000 in proceeds derived from criminal activity, and pay $119,000 in restitution to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency for import duties it avoided as a result of the criminal scheme.

ASN Group was sentenced to pay a $30,000 criminal fine and ordered to implement a compliance program designed to insure compliance with all relevant U.S. Food and Drug Act requirements and regulations.

According to the indictment filed in October 2013, the couple's Nu- Health Products falsified documents and labels in order to import and sell honey bee royal jelly, honey bee propolis and lamb placenta from China, and labeled the products in shipping documents and sales invoices as aloe vera, ginko biloba and multi-vitamins.

Royal jelly -- a milky-white secretion produced by the glands of worker honey bees to nurture queen bees -- has been studied for a variety of medicinal uses, including asthma, hay fever, liver disease and pancreatitis.

The indictment also alleged that the defendants illegally imported seal oil capsules from China in violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The capsules are sold as nutritional supplements.

Leung and Fu each pleaded guilty in October to a single count of introducing misbranded food into interstate commerce with the intent to defraud or mislead. The felony charge is punishable by up to three years in federal prison, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

--City News Service, photo courtesy of Nu-Health Products